Song Lyrics
Songs in Spanish class
Spanish songs’ lyrics are an invaluable teaching didactic resource for Spanish classes. Listening to the lyrics help students improving not only the rhythm of their Spanish pronunciation but also their Spanish syntactic structures. In fact, listening to Spanish songs is an inductive method of learning several language skills.
Spanish teachers can choose songs with different degrees of difficulty and for different purposes: teach colloquial Spanish, Hispanic culture, pronunciation, grammatical rules, Spanish vocabulary, Spanish phrases, and so on. There are many songs’ lyrics that come from Spanish poetry, so it is possible to teach students the main characteristics of different historical periods through them.
The teacher should be smart when choosing Spanish songs for his courses and take into account the age of his students. There are songs that fit for the likes of kids and others that suit better for adults or teenagers. However, modern songs are always a good choice to explain Spanish society and culture nowadays.
It is probably needless to highlight that it is essential to analyze the lyrics in Spanish class. Teachers could ask comprehensive questions connected with lexicon, literary and grammatical issues. In addition, students can bring the meaning of the Spanish song in its social context and the teacher can provide discussion topics or ask students about the feelings that music brings on them.
All in all, Spanish songs’ lyrics allow students to achieve linguistic skills as well as cultural skills.
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Famous Spanish Song Lyrics Alejandro Sanz was one of several Spanish artists of the early 90s to have significant international success. His 1991 album ‘Viviendo Deprisa’ – a title which literally translated as ‘Living in a Hurry’ could have been applied to Spain, generally, at the time – was a huge global hit. The first verse of the eponymous title track goes as follows (with English translations below each line):
No sé cómo decirte |
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Spanish Song Lyrics from Joan Manuel Serrat
Changing tone completely, some of the most compelling and moving of all Spanish song lyrics are in the music of Catalan songwriter, Joan Manuel Serrat. His album ‘Dedicado a Antonio Machado, poeta’ is a series of lavishly moving songs inspired by the great poet.
One song ‘Olmo Seco’ – taken from the book ‘Campos de Castilla’ – is a contemplation of decay and infirmity written by the poet while coming to terms with the early death of his wife. The first verse goes as follows:
Al olmo viejo, hendido por el rayo
(From the old elm, split by lightning)
y en su mitad podrido,
(and half rotten through)
con las lluvias de abril y el sol de mayo,
(with the rains of April and the sun of May,)
algunas hojas verdes le han salido.
(some green leaves have come out.)
El olmo centenario en la colina...
(The hundred-year-old elm on the hill...)
Un musgo amarillento
(A yellowy moss)
le lame la corteza blanquecina
(Licks at its whitish bark)
al tronco carcomido y polvoriento.
(of the worm-eaten and dusty trunk)
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Spanish Song Lyrics from Manu Chao
Solo voy con mi pena |
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Spanish lyrics to learn Spanish
Many immigrant kids attending school have just arrived to Spain. These kids are unfamiliar with the Spanish language and our behavior and social rules. This article examines the effectiveness of the use of Spanish lyrics to teach Spanish to immigrants through games.
- The method Some schools rely on pop music and traditional Spanish melodies to facilitate socio-cultural integration of immigrant’s students as they learn Spanish. This method is achieving very positive results, because immigrant’s students who barely speak Spanish learn Spanish vocabulary and grammar easy and quick. These students learn without much difficulty the chorus of the latest hits of El Canto del Loco, Amaral, Pereza, Miguel Bosé, Nena Daconte and Alejandro Sanz.
- Success of the method The success of this method is explained considering that the first things that hear a foreigner in Spanish are radio and TV songs. The initiative combines teaching the Spanish language with catchy melodies that highly motivate students and allow them to sing and have fun while learning Spanish and improving Spanish conversation.
- Some tricks Spanish teachers can show immigrant students simple melodies with Spanish phrases easy to understand to make their classes more enjoyable. There is evidence that music enables students to interact in Spanish much earlier and learn how to speak Spanish faster.
- Other suggestions
- One of the objectives of the Spanish teacher could be to teach students some Spanish carols and sing them together at Christmas time.
- Another activity that can be positive is to create several choirs in the school and celebrate a “battle of choirs” at the end of the course.
If you want to learn more about Spain and the Spanish culture check Spanish culture. Here, we provide interesting information about Spanish food, Spanish drinks, history, Spanish music and much more. For learning the Spanish language, we recommend our section about Learn Spanish. We offer basic language introductions, learning categories and different helpful methods to learn Spanish. As the historic region of Castille and Leon, is also best known for its language schools, we provide further information about the region on about Castille and Leon and on Spanish language schools you find all the schools ordered by location and cities with their Spanish center in Castille and Leon.
